Four Greek Diaspora have been honoured with the International Foundation for Greece – IFG Awards – for their contribution to promoting Hellenic achievements. Greece’s postal service, the Hellenic Post, has issued stamps depicting the four major contributors.
One of the IFG Awards for 2024 was presented to Australian film filmmaker George Miller (Milliotis), who was born in 1945 in Chinchilla, Queensland. The filmmaker gave us the Mad Max franchise and has been behind major blockbusters, like Babe (1995), earning him an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination. He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Happy Feet (2006) and directed its sequel, Happy Feet Two (2011). He returned to Mad Max, directing the critically acclaimed sequel Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which went on to win six Academy Awards, with Miller receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. He directed the prequel film Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024). Miller’s 2022 Three Thousand Years of Longing, is a fantasy romantic drama based on A. S. Byatt’s short story, about a djinn played by Idris Elba who, after being freed by professor Alithea (Greek for truth), played by Tilda Swinton, recounts tales from his ancient life. In it, the freed djinn begins by speaking Aramaic, then Greek, to Alithea.
The others to feature on Greece’s new stamp issue include Dr Demetri Porphyrios, an architect-urban planner, visiting professor at Yale University, and Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; Michael Psaros, entrepreneur and philanthropist, and managing partner of KPS Capital Partners LP, Archon, Ostiarios of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; and Dean A. Spanos, owner and chairman of the Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League (NFL), Chairman of the Board of The Spanos Corporation – Construction and Multi-Family Development Company.The stamps were presented and franked with the first day of issue postmark on October 14 at the Auditorium “Dimitrios Pantermalis” of the Acropolis Museum.
The Series is available at the ELTA Branches and the ELTA e-shop at www.philotelismos.gr
